The Memory of World War I

And the Hughes/Currie battle

Currie/Hughes

The Attack on Mons, 11 November 1918

Were I in authority, the officer, who four hours before the Armistice was signed . . .ordered the attack on Mons . . .would be tried summarily by court martial and punished so far as the law would allow. Sam Hughes, House of Commons, March 1919

1928: Currie Sues For Libel

And wins But the trial comes at a physical cost Sir Arthur Currie dies (age 57) in 1933

How was the Great War Understood?

Pointless ? If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devils sick of sin; Wilfrid Owen, Dulce et Decorum est Pro Patria Mori

Or as Noble?
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori
Homer, 27 BC It is sweet and seemly to die for ones country.

The Myth of the War:

the myth of fallen; the myth of nation-building; the myth of pan-Canadian unity

The Memory of World War I The Brooding Soldier

St. Julian, Belgium Sculptor: Frederick Chapman Clemesha Dedicated, 1923

Vimy Ridge, 1936 Walter Allward, Sculptor

 Was the Great War rejected in the popular memory or embraced?

Jonathan Vance, Death So Noble: Memory, Meaning and the First World War Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1997.